


Yule

by Delphi



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Comfort Sex, Drama, Drunk Sex, First Time, M/M, Yule
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-06
Updated: 2004-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:39:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the Yule Ball in <i>Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire</i>, two men share a lonely night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yule

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beth H (bethbethbeth)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethbethbeth/gifts).



The wind met him at the door just after midnight, sweeping out of the east and blowing snow across the courtyard in little flurries. A shepherd's gale, his grandmother would have called it. It always roused itself in the falling hours of the Yule, driving out the fat ram of the old year and leading in the lamb of the new. Noisy and gusting, it was the wrong sort for the season, and some years it came curiously mild and sweet with the spices of the Mediterranean still clinging to its back. But mostly it was just cruel.

Severus Snape stood shivering on the threshold for a moment, staring up at the frosted pine garlands twining around a colonnade. Then he pulled up the hood of his cloak and stepped out into the cold, flinching when the wind slammed the door shut behind him.

He carefully picked his way across the frozen grounds and down to the lake where the Hogsmeade ferry was battering itself against the dock. The castle's dark and silent presence was palpable at his back. The Yule lights were snuffed, the party over, and all good children tucked in their beds. It was a hopeless sight. As little love as Severus held for the holiday, there was always something worse in the company of grey days that crept by in its wake. Useless days—more dark than daylight—and tonight, good for nothing but looking ahead to a new year too bleak to even contemplate.

He was far too sober. His hands shook as he loosed the boat and stepped aboard. He took in a deep breath to soothe his aching head. His mouth had been hot and dry all evening, thirsting for the crisp night air almost as much as for the drink. He settled back against the shallow lip of the boat as it began to propel itself across the water, the lantern swaying like a bewildered will o' the wisp. Above the lake, the sky stretched out like a shroud, black and inviting.

His hair was whipped about his face as he gazed out at the retreating shore. He supposed it to be a tragic pose, a romantic pose, which made him all the more pitiable to himself. He was thirty-five years old now, his last birthday having passed unnoticed even by himself, and much too old to be adding pages to the Sorrows of Young Severus.

He sighed. Thirty-five should certainly be wiser than to draw his knees to his chest and lay his chin mournfully upon them as he watched the castle turrets glint like icicles in the moonlight.

The brilliance hurt his eyes, and he eventually had to look away—to his hands, to the rudder, and then to the lake. Even bullied by the wind, the last held the reflection of the stars so clearly that it made him dizzy. The water was black death tonight, cold enough to have lulled even the hardy merfolk to sleep.

Cold enough, he thought, to stop a man's heart mid-beat.

He reached over the side of the boat and let the fingertips of one hand break the surface of the water. It burned at first, like touching a hot cauldron, but he held firm, and the pain soon quieted. After a minute there was no more feeling, save a curious weight he supposed was the blood slowing in his veins.

Cherry ice, he thought morbidly, and he smiled in the dark. He pulled his hand out, peering at the little droplets that had frozen to his skin upon meeting the air. He sucked on his fingers, making them burn again before sheltering them up his sleeves. He hadn't dressed for the cold: no gloves, no muffler, and no real forethought. There was a time, he recalled, when the headmaster would have swooped down to cluck had he even thought of leaving the castle like this. Back in the days when Severus was still something of a young man and the winters weren't really so cold anyhow.

It wasn't long before the ferry began to slow. He glanced over his shoulder to find the lights of Hogsmeade beckoning, a pearly glow off the waterfront easing the craft towards its mooring beneath the town pier. Once berthed, Severus climbed the icy ladder to the dock. It was colder here on this side of the lake, and he gathered his cloak tighter around his shoulders as he began the trek down to Main Street, shuffling his feet uncertainly along the frozen cobblestones.

The town was sleeping soundly all around him, windows dark or else only dimly lit behind drawn shades or closed shutters. For a moment he wondered if the Hog's Head might not even be closed early for the holidays, but a burst of muffled laughter from up the block quickly disabused him of so quaint a notion. He turned the corner to find the lantern burning above the pub's doors and the old boar's head leering in the shadows.

He paused in the shelter of the doorway to stamp the snow from his boots, one hand questing for his purse while the other reached for the door-handle. He saw the spark a split second before he felt it—

_hissed_

—and jerked his hand back too late to avoid the bolt of blue lightning that snapped between his fingers and the door. It jumped in a crackle over his skin, the muscles in his forearm convulsing under the Dark Mark and its concealing charm. The pain struck him to the teeth, making him choke.

His hand curled into a sweaty fist, and he reluctantly cradled it to his chest.

Jaw clenching, he glanced up and down the deserted street to make certain he hadn't been seen. Then he took a closer look at the door and scowled. Cold iron—he should have remembered—intended to keep out the worst of the bad element back in the day when the fair folk still rode their wild hunt in the woods surrounding the village.

A less foolhardy man might take it for a sign, but Severus found himself craving a good stiff drink now more than ever.

He reached for the handle again, this time with significantly more caution and his cloak wrapped around his right hand. When his tentative fingers found nothing but the muted chill of the metal, he pulled the door open, sending a puff of smoke out into the street.

The greasy heat of the pub drew him inside, and he took care to keep his left arm well away from the door as he closed it. The Mark was still sullenly throbbing as he stalked up to the bar and fumbled for his silver. His Christmas bonus splurged for brandy.

The old barman looked at his money, not his face. It was said that town charter allowed a man to be hung from his bootstraps off the boar's tusks for trying to pass leprechaun gold, and Severus watched as weathered hands clinked his coins together with a practised turn before palming them into thin air. Just as smoothly, the man produced a bottle of Salamander's Very Old and a dirty glass, which Severus took to a corner table just out of range of the pub's dim lamps.

He sat and poured himself a drink, sipping it slowly in preparation for what he hoped would be a well-paced marathon of inebriation. Covertly, he watched the other figures flitting through the shadows. The pub was not quite empty, not quite full. Quiet conversation buzzed around him, with the occasional rowdy outburst from the hearth where five low men sat with their cards held close to their chests. They were likely the source of the raucous laughter he'd heard from the street; they roared and cursed, voices clanking and clattering like their coins on the table.

Severus sat and drank. The clock struck one, then half-past. From time to time, he found his right hand creeping irresistibly up his sleeve, skirting the imperceptible edges of the inked skull and serpent. He stared down at the scarred and scabbed oak table. In typical poor taste of the season, someone had hung a wreath of holly around it. It had wilted in the smoke, and he flicked it to the floor before bumping his chair further back into darkness and singeing his mouth with the spirits.

No one spared him a second glance, which suited him. He had counted on the fact that he was not as well known here as at the Three Broomsticks. He could in fact count on the fingers of one hand the occasions upon which he'd allowed himself to indulge in the anonymity of the pub and the amnesia that strong drink could bring. Few here would know his face. Fewer still should know his name.

Which was why he nearly dropped his glass when he heard it called.

"Sev'rus?"

It took him an instant, but he then realised that he knew the sound of his name on that voice, though it had been Sir or Professor more often than not over the past few years. He set his drink down and craned his neck, confirming his guess with the knowledge that no other silhouette could eclipse all the light in the pub at once.

"Hagrid." He attempted a curt nod and had to catch himself before the momentum carried his chin right down to his chest.

The brandy had sneaked up on him, and he wasn't sure if what he felt was resentment or relief. Either way, he found his tongue resigned. "I suppose the headmaster has sent you to fetch me."

But to his surprise, those massive shoulders only shrugged like an avalanche. "Came for a drink, same as you."

Hagrid held up one of the pub's half-casks, apparently down to the dregs by the hollow slosh it made when he gestured towards the table. "Goin' ter offer me a seat?"

It took him slightly aback: not the request, but the tone of it. There was a greyness to Hagrid's voice that was unsettling. He sounded uncharacteristically quiet and tired, and old. He sounded how Severus felt.

Severus sighed. "Why not."

That was when he knew he was well on his way to pissed. His face felt numb even though the room was warm and smoky. He couldn't even make himself frown.

The table rocked as Hagrid squeezed in across from him, a wild-haired shadow of his usual self. He tipped his cask. "To...comp'ny?"

Severus narrowed his eyes. He'd been planning on taking another drink anyhow. The glass was already in his hand.

"To company..." he acquiesced. Then couldn't keep from adding: "...howsoever rare it might be."

He smirked when Hagrid drank to it. Then, to his horror, a snigger slipped out. He clapped a hand over his mouth and waited for Hagrid to comment on it. Hagrid didn't. He waited for Hagrid to ask what was wrong. Hagrid didn't.

Instead they sat in silence, drinking and not quite looking at each other. He dimly recalled that staff room rumour put Hagrid in Madame Maxime's suite right about now—and hadn't Severus glimpsed him stitched into some horribly hairy suit earlier that evening? He was just debating whether he was required to summon some pity for the man when Hagrid suddenly cleared his throat.

"It were nice, seein' the kiddies have fun, weren't it?" He sounded almost doubtful. He knew to whom he was speaking.

"No," Severus replied flatly, which was the truth as well as what he suspected Hagrid wanted to hear. Simultaneously, he decided that sympathy for the man was rather beyond him at the moment. "No, it really wasn't."

Hagrid's eyes met his own, cutting through the shade of Severus's cowl.

"Ain't their fault," he said softly. "Bein' happy, I mean. They don'...they don' got ter be disappointed yet, I reckon."

Severus shrugged, trying his best not to be remotely interested in what Hagrid 'reckoned.' It detracted from his own self-pity, which was the sole point of tonight's excursion. He poured himself another generous shot, tipping the last precious drops from the bottom of the bottle.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Hagrid touched his wrist.

"Yeh're like ice."

And before he could pull away, both his hands were folded up in Hagrid's grip.

"Might yeh want ter be comin' back wi' me?" Hagrid asked, his mouth settling into a thin, uncertain line between the thicket of his moustache and beard.

Severus frowned, tasting the words and trying to decipher whether Hagrid had just asked what he thought he'd asked. He licked his lips distractedly.

"I mean," Hagrid was shaking his head now. "We wouldn' have ter...I was jus' thinking tha' maybe—maybe yeh didn' want ter be alone tonight either."

The heat came flooding to Severus's face in one great rush, and he felt his eyebrows creep up on their own accord, for appearance's sake more than anything else. The offer was unexpected to be sure, but not one unheard of in a place where seventeen adults attempted to hold ground and sanity amidst an ever-changing swarm of children. But not with him, never with him. Not with so many peers who were not quite peers, staff who still remembered him from his own student days.

He had wondered, though, if it had only been his imagination that Hagrid's gaze sometimes stuttered past him on its way to Minerva. The notion, in the face of Hagrid's warm hands, wasn't...wasn't entirely unappealing.

The clock behind the bar said nearly two. It was getting late, a lonely hour in which more wraiths were drifting out of the pub than in. One way or the other, he was going to have to make his way home soon, pissed, through the dark and snow and over the lake. He shuddered, thinking of the wind pushing him into the water. Adages aside, he knew that God did not look after drunks and little children.

Hagrid's hands tightened around his own with barely a fraction of the strength he could have used to crush bone. In the gloom, his eyes looked blacker than the lake, blacker than Severus's own.

He shook his head at the hollow feeling in his chest.

"Or maybe He does." It slipped out, unintended, and he chuckled bitterly at his own drunkenness.

And when he pulled out of Hagrid's grasp, it was only to push back his hood. To brush the hair out of his eyes and look at Hagrid naked-faced, daring him to change his mind. Something stirred in the pit of his belly, as though his body were aware it was being coveted, for whatever that was worth. He earned himself nothing more than Hagrid's seemingly endless patience.

He sighed, closing his eyes.

Then nodded before he could stop himself.

There was something there—a flicker of a smile before Hagrid stood up with admirably sober balance. It was the feet, he thought, and felt the tips of his ears warm.

"Yeh all righ'?" Hagrid asked, suddenly right behind him.

He realised he had laid his hand to his fluttering stomach, looking as though he were ill rather than entertaining perverse thoughts regarding size.

"Fine," he said, more sharply than intended.

"Had too much o' the strong stuff?" Hagrid suddenly sounded uncertain, and Severus looked up to see him eyeing the empty bottle of brandy.

Damned scrupulous Gryffindors. Here he'd been getting rather hot, thinking about Hagrid taking advantage of his drunken folly.

"Not nearly enough," he declared. "You're to fix me a drink when we get back to the grounds."

Then, leaning equally on the tabletop and Hagrid's arm, he pushed himself to his feet.

He was pleased when the room didn't spin. The blood rushed in his ears at the sudden move upwards, and he swayed for a moment, but he had found his balance even before Hagrid steadied him. He let himself lean a moment anyway, feeling the heat bleed through his clothing. How long had it been since someone had touched him? Hagrid's hand was big enough to cover half his back.

"Lead on, Rubeus," he said, and he let Hagrid go ahead of him through the maze of tables.

He followed closely, thinking there was something he was meant to remember when he left. Something about the door.

His left hand clenched.

Ah, yes. The cold iron.

Hagrid kept turning back to him as they made their way out&amp;—small, furtive glances, as though he expected Severus to Disapparate the moment his vigilance lapsed.

"Watch where you're going," Severus chided, thinking that one of them should, and all he could see was Hagrid's broad back.

His words were lost in the creak of the door, however, as he found himself stumbling out into the street. He winced at the sudden cold, that first breath like swallowing ice. He let out something halfway between a gasp and a laugh, and it must have sounded as though he were about to swoon, because Hagrid's arm was around him in an instant.

"I'm fine," he said, but discovered that the air around Hagrid's body was warm and salty. He turned slightly to breathe it in.

Hagrid's hands fit along his sides, big enough to encircle his waist. His touch was nearly insubstantial, as though he were holding bone china between his fingertips. He stroked down to Severus's hips, the movement drawing him forward.

"Rubeus?" he murmured into Hagrid's chest.

"Yeah?" Hagrid's voice echoed warm and rumbly against his cheek, shaking the thoughts loose in his head.

"Hm. I don't know."

The vibration of a chuckle made him shiver, and the cold air at his back made leaning closer more and more appealing. Hagrid's leg was just hard and soft enough to make rubbing against it feel very nice.

"Shut up," he muttered, though Hagrid had already stopped laughing and was doing nothing more than pressing his thumbs into where Severus's hipbones curved. "Shut up. Just give me a moment to think."

Hagrid's hands snuck into his cloak. Long fingers slipped under his arms, palms splayed over his ribs.

"Yeh take all the time yeh need," Hagrid said, and then he curled over him like a great big question mark.

A soft kiss fell like a snowflake on top of his head. Hagrid's beard smelled like ale and the spiced peanuts they put out at the bar.

Severus tilted his face up, seeing only two shades of darkness and the foggy grey of their breath steaming in the air. He closed his eyes and stood up on his tiptoes and was held there in two strong hands. He could feel the halo of heat as Hagrid leaned in, and then their mouths pressed together. Almost chastely, until the tip of a tongue swept across his lips. The bristly beard stroked his cheeks and chin like a woollen mitten, feeling surprisingly pleasant.

The teasing little licks quickly turned to gentle nudges, and he opened his eyes mid-kiss. God, he'd sucked cocks smaller than that tongue. A wicked thrill made his body arch, and his breath quickened as he drew the slippery thing into his mouth. It brought Hagrid right down over him, letting out a moan so low that Severus felt it reverberate along his jaw.

He was gathered up close, that tree trunk of a leg flush against his belly. It took a moment for him to realise just what was jabbing into his sternum, and when he did, it drove a spike of arousal through him like nothing he'd felt in years. He couldn't stop himself from pushing against it, wanting to feel it stiffen, thicken, spend itself all over him. The steady throb between his legs began to coalesce into something more intense. When Hagrid pulled back, he was dragging a strangled sigh out with him.

"No' here." Hagrid sounded breathless as he straightened up. "How's 'bout I take yeh home an' warm yeh up proper?"

He felt a light squeeze on his hip, just a few inches away from where he was aching to be touched. Pressure, he thought fuzzily. That hand could shatter his pelvis if it wanted to, yet it seemed more than happy to treat him gently for the moment.

"Gently..." he echoed, and Hagrid immediately let go, trying to wrangle his hand out of Severus's cloak and failing.

"Did I hurt yeh?" he asked, his worry apparent even as Severus scuttled forward.

"No, you did not." Then he added as an afterthought: "But you're welcome to try."

He imagined Hagrid's shocked expression and miserably delighted in it. Twice the shock on twice the face.

But Hagrid's voice came frustratingly calm. "Now, now, none o' that. I'll take yeh home. Take care o' yeh."

It was almost pathetic in its sincerity, really. How desperate the old fellow had to be, Severus thought, to turn him so firmly by the shoulders and steer him towards the pier. Rubbing his back, muttering stupid, silly platitudes as though luring home a hesitant stray.

He sighed.

How desperate he must be in return to close his eyes and willingly sleepwalk, one foot in front of the other, listening only to Hagrid's heavy breathing and the far-off whistle of the wind. He'd far from reached his limits, but he still hadn't been this drunk in an age. He felt as though he were floating along, barely tethered to his body. A phantom in that ghostly part of the night when it was too late for reason and too early for regret.

"Careful, now."

The sudden lack of warmth made him open his eyes, and he realised they had already reached the dock. Hagrid was down by the water, one foot in the ferry and the other on the ladder's lowest rung. Severus put up only a token protest as he was guided down, a hand at his waist and the frozen metal under his bare palms. Even with the charms on the boat, the whole contraption tipped alarmingly as Hagrid climbed in after him.

The breeze off the lake turned into a sobering slap to the face once they started up. He was settled in snugly—almost sitting in Hagrid's lap, he discovered with some embarrassment—but the cold was quickly dispersing the haze at the edge of his thoughts.

"The merfolk are sleeping tonight," he heard himself say.

Hagrid grunted in agreement. "Been sleepin' for a while, they have. They'll be sleepin' 'til springtime."

Severus only dimly heard him. His eyes were fixed on the stars reflected in the black water.

"If I were to fall in..." he said softly, feeling the words tumble out one after the other. "...if I were to fall in, I would freeze before I went under. I wouldn't be able to struggle."

Hagrid didn't reply, but his arms very slowly came around him and held him so tightly he thought he might suffocate. They stayed just like that all the while until the far shore approached. Severus was absurdly grateful for it.

The boat docked. Neither said a word as they climbed out, but a single trepid glance darted between them. He looked to the castle, where not a single light or sound crept out, and shuddered to think of the company entombed within its walls. Igor. Moody. Potter. The headmaster in his tower. By silent accord, they set off for Hagrid's cabin, with Hagrid trudging a pathway through the snow and Severus tucked tightly against his side, out of the wind.

It was only as they neared the little stone hut, with its guardian lantern lighting up the path, that he felt his first true sense of unease. Trysting with Hagrid; there was no way he'd even be considering it sober. He hadn't shared a bed in...in...well, the sums didn't quite work out in his head, but it had been a very long time. He hadn't been with a man since he was little more than a boy.

His body gave an involuntary twitch.

Or perhaps madness was the remedy for madness. Men—especially men of Hagrid's ilk—were notoriously uncomplicated. Suck, fuck, and be done with it. Relief was what he was craving, and the hunger of it was more powerful than these small pangs of conscience. Relief, release, and some brief respite from the tumult ahead. That was all he wanted.

"Change o' heart?"

Hagrid stood in the open doorway, that drooling mutt of his poking its head around the jamb. The wind scrubbed at Severus's face, scouring his skin. The thought of walking back to his rooms alone made him feel physically ill.

He shook his head. "Not yet."

He caught the grin that Hagrid tried to hide as he leaned down to give the dog a pat. "Yeh want ter go guard the stables tonigh', Fang? There's a good boy."

Fang paused only to cast Severus a baleful look before obediently trotting off. Hagrid shuffled back and ushered him in with an awkward wave.

He stepped into darkness, immediately enfolded in the warm smell of animals and root vegetables. A lamp flared to life across the room, and once his eyes had adjusted, he looked around curiously. He had only been out here a time or two, and never over the threshold. It was all rather rustic, as he would have expected. A cupboard and a chest of drawers stood against the walls, with a large table taking up most of the space between. The bed was enormous: shabby, but it looked clean.

Hagrid had kicked off his boots. His coat landed on the table with a multi-toned thunk. He ran a hand through his hair before hesitantly stepping forward.

"Take yer cloak?"

Severus's hands began warming to pins and needles as he unclasped the cloak and passed it over, somewhat amused by the care Hagrid took in folding it before hanging it over the back of a chair. He bent to unbuckle his boots, watching from beneath his eyelashes as Hagrid then busied himself at the fireplace. He snuck a covert peek up his sleeve to make certain the concealing spell had held. He was no good with charms when he was drinking.

He stood up, a feeling like winding clockwork in his chest. He was hard—or rather, just on the edge of it, ready to get there on a moment's notice—and the air felt heavy with nervous expectation. He had sobered up a little, his mind sharpening on the edge of urgency.

When the fire had finally caught, Severus went over and snuffed the lamp, leaving them in harmless orange shadows. He irritably wiped his face on sleeve. He likely looked something short of his best, which was never that good to start with. Which was why it startled him to glance up and find Hagrid gazing at him hotly, an Oak King in homespun, hungry and hopeful, with a glint of victory in his eyes.

He froze like a cornered hare as Hagrid approached, digging in his heels to keep himself from stepping back. Severus was not particularly tall, and yet he hadn't been _loomed_ over so since he was a child. He was mindful of his space, and most he met were mindful in turn not to cross it.

He braced himself for a pounce that never came.

Rather, Hagrid stopped just inches away, close enough that Severus could feel the warmth radiating from him. A single finger slipped in between the buttons of his robes, just above his navel. He was wearing a singlet underneath, but the contact was mildly exhilarating nonetheless. Hagrid moved back.

Step by step, and silent, Severus allowed himself to be led to the bed. The stone floor was frigid beneath his stocking feet, the heat gathering inside him unbearable. He stumbled when Hagrid sat down hard at the edge of the mattress, and a hand at his back caught him, drawing him closer until he was tucked tight between two thick thighs.

In that instant, he had the advantage and pressed it. He leaned in, clutching Hagrid's shoulders—wanting his mouth muffled, stifled, kept occupied until they were far gone enough that it didn't matter what he said—and found his kiss gladly met, hot and bruising. Little nips and licks made him weak in the knees, and he let out a sigh at the strong hand that cupped his backside. It felt like it could lift him right off his feet, and he barely noticed when the other hand wriggled into the space between their bodies and began plucking at his buttons. Hagrid proved himself surprisingly dextrous; four buttons down from the collar and the whole thing slid off Severus's shoulders.

His hands scrabbled at Hagrid's chest in turn, shaky and uncooperative as he worked at the shirt, eventually getting it unbuttoned. He tugged the tails out and waited impatiently—his mouth still lingering over each kiss—for Hagrid to do away with the rest. He felt a hurried shuffle and heard the shirt land on the floor beside him.

He drew back to see what he'd uncovered and then swallowed hard. He had never considered himself attracted to base things, but the sheer masculinity...

Biting his lip, he ran his hands over Hagrid's huge shoulders, the thick chest, the masses of crisp dark hair that covered ruddy skin like moss on a tree. So big. It made Severus feel small, almost fragile. And yet, despite Hagrid's size, it took only the lightest nudge to fell him.

Hagrid tumbled willingly back on the bed with one push, and Severus climbed up beside him, hands restlessly roaming, comparing the twin pleasures of a soft, furry belly and smooth sides before making clumsy work of the belt buckle.

"Yeh've got me so hard," Hagrid murmured, hesitantly stroking his hair.

Severus ducked out from under his touch. "Shh."

He could have no distraction as he fought to unfasten Hagrid's trousers, big shiny buttons slipping through his nerveless fingers. Hagrid was ridiculously huge underneath, straining out towards his hand. No drawers, of course, nothing so civilised. Just naked skin, hot and coarsely red. He found himself thinking, absurdly, about just how much blood it must take to keep that thing up. Which made him consider where all his own must be, because his loins felt girded with iron and his head filled with sand.

Hagrid's breathing grew rough when Severus finally uncovered him, but he made no move to touch him back, hands fisted in the blankets as though he couldn't quite trust himself. His eyes were screwed tightly shut, lips wet and parted.

Severus inched closer and tentatively took Hagrid in hand. A pulse of excitement made him tremble when he felt how swollen it was. Warm and alive and much like any other he'd ever touched, only on a larger scale. He leaned in even closer. Hagrid smelled good and musky and strange there, and when Severus gave him a lick, he let out a soft groan that stirred something to rustling in the corner.

"Yeh...don' have ter..." Hagrid said awkwardly, his eyes open now and darting to Severus's mouth.

Though he likely hadn't meant it as a challenge, Severus was more than willing to take it as such, wondering who had and hadn't managed as he lowered his mouth. His lips quirked around it as Hagrid gasped, the lightest touch ghosting over his shoulder. It wasn't such a chore, he quickly concluded—his jaw stretched, but not uncomfortably so—though the taste was uncommonly strong. He wrinkled his nose and fumbled down to give himself a rub through his shorts.

He could feel Hagrid desperately trying not to move. It was spelled out in the heaving belly, the sweat, the bunching muscle of a thigh. It spurred him on, and he set to screwing the great thing with his mouth, licking it, dragging the undersides of his lips across the head. Feverishly hard himself, he rubbed and squeezed and opened up for as much as he could take.

Hagrid cursed, quiet and choked.

It was the first time Severus had ever heard him do so, and the filthy word in that earnest voice was strangely exciting. He squirmed in place, trying to find some purchase to frot against the bed, and focused his attentions. Closing his eyes made the world turn upside down, and he wondered if he was going to come just from this, the slow slide of hot skin against his lips and hand, the lewdly wet sounds. Each nudge at the back of his throat was a dangerous thrill.

Hagrid's tight moans were beyond gratifying, stroking him from the inside out and making him ache to be touched. He had to be close now, sighing Severus's name over and over.

"Sev—" A great gasp was the only warning he got before Hagrid violently yanked on the sheets, and one short thrust nearly choked him.

He couldn't swallow. It was too fast, too much, and he pulled off with a sputter, his jaw too stiff to stop the warm seed from dripping out of his mouth and onto the sheets. Hagrid pulsed in his fist over and over, what seemed like a year's worth of pent-up sex spilling out to the last. He was wheezing like a winded horse, eyes fixed unwaveringly on Severus, who swayed drunkenly up on hands and knees.

One big finger reached out and tentatively traced the contours of his lips. He flushed, half-ashamed and half-aroused as he felt the slick semen being smeared around his mouth like a harlot's paint.

He was pulled down for another kiss, this one soft and slack. His own need couldn't stand to be put aside any longer, his cock throbbing insistently as he let himself be laid out on the bed. The world flipped again as his head hit the pillow.

"Yeh've warmed up nicely, haven't yeh," Hagrid whispered, sounding smug, though his eyes were still dazed and crinkled, on the border of sleep.

Fingertips stroked along Severus's cheek, his throat, his breastbone. A palm pressed flat over his chest as though feeling for his heartbeat. It was there, yes, he could feel it.

He arched his back, and the hand moved lower, leaving a warm glow that he half expected to see. It felt decadent, and so he did it again, twisting impatiently as the heat slowly spread down his belly.

Hagrid cleared his throat. He was looking down at his own hand against Severus' skin like it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.

"Don't...don't say a word," Severus managed to croak, unwilling to stand the thought of any inanity, any patently false endearment intruding on this tentative warmth. He waited to see Hagrid's puzzled nod before dropping his head back onto the pillow.

He put his hand over Hagrid's, urging it down those few crucial inches. Hagrid's fingers pushed eagerly under his waistband, and he found himself helplessly arching up at the reminder of how a strange touch trumped his own. Feathery little strokes, not nearly enough, but relentless. He bit down on his lip. God, when had anyone ever met his body with such enthusiasm? Never mind that it was Hagrid of all people coaxing him patiently towards the edge even after his own hunger had been sated, Hagrid fumbling with him, gently squeezing him between two fingers until he positively had to buck up into that welcoming pleasure.

He shut his eyes tight. Just never mind.

His hips fell into the rhythm set for them. It was useless even trying to keep a rein on his breathing as it burst out in slow, shuddering gasps. His mind raced madly. He imagined dying—of the weak heart that had stolen his mother, the stroke that had taken his grandfather, of the taut, trembling pleasure itself—right here in Hagrid's bed. If mere arousal was shaking him out of control, peaking would surely kill him. Poppy would be summoned, the headmaster, the whole school, to see him debased and debauched, splattered with semen and reeking of liquor.

He stretched impatiently, letting Hagrid work his shorts down, leaving him bare and aching. Then Hagrid was moving over him, up on all fours like a great shaggy boarhound. One hand curled fully around him, almost too hot and firm to bear.

"Hagrid—" he gasped, a warning that it was too much. But his legs spread apart, belying anything his mouth had to say.

The dark eyes that pinned him were nearly frightening in their intensity. Not wild, no, not bestial as he might have expected. They were deep, and fierce, and calculating, filled with an _intelligent_ hunger.

"Don't yeh worry none."

His left leg was abruptly hiked over a broad shoulder, suspending him effortlessly off the bed. He pushed himself up on his elbows, wanting—needing—to see. It was indecent to watch, but his eyes widened even further as Hagrid's tongue darted out to taste him.

Taste?

Hardly.

Severus found himself devoured, swallowed right down to the root. So hot, so deliciously wet—down farther than anyone had ever taken him before, all the way inside. His heel dug into Hagrid's back, the sweep of hair tickling his thighs, the tangle of beard stroking him to sweetest distraction.

The heat around him gathered and grew as he was firmly sucked. It felt like a hex: something that snapped right through him, as intense and excruciating as pain. But he knew pain well. He had defences for pain.

A distant part of him realised that he had wound his fingers through Hagrid's hair, that he was pulling too hard. He was swiftly losing control, thrusting rough and fast with a strength he would have thought beyond him, clawing his way to completion with none of the restraint that he'd been shown.

He ground himself into Hagrid's mouth and felt like he was seventeen again, his lust a starving beast that meant to consume him from the inside out. _Wanting_ it so very badly, that was familiar enough, but giving in to it was wholly new. Hagrid was slurping and sucking at him, feasting on him, and Severus was thrusting and fucking and panting. Like an animal, he thought wildly. Like he were nothing more than an animal.

Hagrid never faltered, or paused, or teased. His hands were everywhere, his mouth perfectly devout. It overwhelmed him from all sides until he felt like he was caught in a landslide. Nearly there, oh please, nearly there.

He dared to look down, trying to assemble the jumbled words in his head to give proper warning, but all that came out was a drawn-out cry that didn't even sound human. Hagrid must have had every inch of his tongue wrapped tight around him, a slick, wet, squeezing embrace. His eyes met Severus's, fathomless, like they meant to swallow him too.

Severus's head fell back, and he could distantly hear his own voice muttering how close he was, how he needed, how he couldn't stop. Hagrid rumbled something satisfied, and that soft vibration was the straw that broke him.

His body crested, an all-encompassing wave that seemed to sweep through him over and over without breaking. His hands clenched, every muscle drawn tight as a bowstring until he finally snapped, shuddering, shaking, spurting all over...oh, all over Hagrid's tongue, which kept right on rubbing him for the eternity until the very last tremors began to wane.

He sank back into himself as Hagrid gently lowered him down. His arms were weak and trembling, and he eased himself flat onto his back. He cursed under his ragged breath.

"Mm." Hagrid let him slip with a soft smacking of lips.

With that distasteful sound, and the shock of cold air against his damp skin, every bit of what he'd been holding at arm's length came rushing back to him: shock, and absurdity, and something that honestly didn't know whether it meant to be shame or a contrary sort of pride. Had he not been utterly drained, he might have cringed, or grabbed for his robes—anything. As it was, all he could do was shiver and belatedly remember to let go of Hagrid's hair.

Random words drifted through his mind, each possibility rejected in turn. To the best of his knowledge, there was no polite stock phrase for this sort of situation. This wasn't the sort of thing one discussed in polite society. He rolled over, the sheets scraping ruthlessly against him. His limbs were shaky, but he managed to wiggle himself free and swing his legs over the side of the mattress.

A warm hand was curled around his hip in an instant. Almost grasping, but not quite.

"Jus'...jus' stay here a while yet, all righ'?"

He froze, and his hesitation was apparently taken for consent. The mattress dipped, and Hagrid's arm came around his middle, drawing him back down onto the bed. He was too wrung out to fight and allowed himself to be tucked in among the rumpled folds of the bed linens, pressing his cheek against Hagrid's damp chest. They settled in, fidget by fidget, carefully negotiating the angles of elbows and knees. When he felt Hagrid fall still, he breathed out and closed his eyes.

"Stay fer breakfast?" Hagrid asked quietly. "I'll make us somethin' nice."

The reply came readily to his lips: No, no, I've somewhere else to be. Only he didn't, and Hagrid's arm lay across him like a steel bar, as though he meant to keep him there by brute strength if need be. His head was beginning to ache, the brandy digging its talons back into him, and he wanted to sleep. Sleep, and sleep, and sleep—if not forever, then at least through this godforsaken winter, through the waiting and the trickle of ink slowly seeping into his blood.

Outside, the gale was winding up for its last leg before dawn, no less strong for the small hour of the morning. A particularly violent gust startled him—a keening howl that battered the door and set the shingles rattling. He shivered helplessly at the sound of it.

"Jus' the wind," Hagrid murmured, and Severus found himself gathered up like a rag doll.

The steady lub of Hagrid's heartbeat filled his ears, keeping time with the pounding in his head. It was oddly soothing, steady and strong, a sturdier defence against the wailing outside than the solid stone walls.

A kiss brushed the top of his head. "Jus' the wind..."

For a moment, he almost let himself believe it.


End file.
